The Bitterness of Love
by Fallstavia
Summary: Exalted 1e SiderealAbyssal story.  AhnAru, Chosen of Endings Signature character, survives her attack against Lilith only to face death in the snow.  Instead, a most unusual man finds her.  Their love is as powerful as it is tragic.  Warning: Sex.
1. Chapter 1

Iveren was surprised to find a woman in the snow.

It shouldn't be snowing. It was the wrong season for it. Iveren knew the ice, though, and no one should be out in weather like this, not even a Tear-Eater. The snow fell like a mammoth, as heavy and unstoppable as one of the great giants thrown down. Despite being almost to Halta, the storm was giving the Freezing Fog healthy competition. Maybe the storm was following him. Or maybe it was following her.

No one should be out here...unless they wanted to die. Or they had no choice.

Iveren considered the slowly struggling shape ahead bitterly. He had come for the first reason. Given how hard the vaguely feminine snow-covered body dragged herself forward, she was here for the second.

He pushed through the curtain of wet white. It didn't take long to catch her. She crawled like a heart-shot Great One, too stubborn to die. Iveren shook the gathering snow off his hides and shielded his face with his forearm. Yes, definitely a woman.

She turned back to face him as Iveren came up behind her. A startlingly tanned face shone darkly in the washed out white of the world. A strange symbol burned on her forehead, throwing off a smoky purple color. He'd heard stories of the Great Enemy of the Tear-Eaters, the Sun-Touched himself, the Bull of the North. She didn't look anything like the stories.

"I'm here to help you," he said, shouting against the storm. The blizzard wasn't loud so much as it forbid sound. Iveren risked the anger of the Weather Gods by speaking against their wishes. She needed his help.

"I don't believe it," she croaked, barely audible beneath the thick snowflakes.

"If I wanted to hurt you, I'd just walk away," Iveren said harshly. He just wanted to die. The last thing he needed was to put off his longed for fate for an ungrateful woman.

"No, you don't understand." She moaned and fell backward in the snow. Iveren gawked as he saw her front. Beneath the snow hare fur-lining of her robes, her torso was painted a garish red from her blood. Her wounds were hideous and she'd lost so much blood, it was a miracle she still moving. "I don't believe this. I'm supposed to die."

"You will if I don't get you to shelter."

"I'm supposed to die!" As he drew close, he saw her eyes were wide with set-in shock, her beautiful brown orbs glazed from pain and the nearness of her demise. "The stars hold my Ending and it's on me. I don't have the strength to turn it aside."

"I do. If you want to die, do it after I've fixed you up. I'm not letting you do it right now." Iveren lifted her over his shoulder, doing his best to be gentle given he had to carry her where she was hurt. A Starmetal Powerbow fell from her hand. He gave it a hard look and at last picked it up. It was heavy, like all the weapons of the Exalted, but she might want it later.

He struggled now as he pushed through the snow, burdened by the woman and her weapon, along with his own travel gear. A mile to the south lay a thicker copse of trees, oen that would break up the fierce storm. He needed to build a shelter if she was going to live.

Some time later, Iveren reached the trees and found a natural hollow at the base of one. Carefully, he put his bloody burden down. The cold snapped at his skin when he took off his hides but she needed warmth and they were the best he could do for now. He tucked them tightly around the semi-conscious stranger and drew his knife. He laid into some branches and set to work.

Steam rose from his flushed skin by the time he was done. The makeshift A-frame would keep the cold off her. As snow fell, it would settle on the pack built over the shelter, adding to its insulation.

Iveren crawled into the enclosure and pulled the blocks of snow he'd cut to seal the way behind. There wasn't enough room to stand but he had the light from her brow and that was enough to examine her injuries. They were frightening. Claws had torn into her body. While she hadn't been disemboweled, whatever attacked her had ripped away flesh. There were pieces missing. It was easier to find savaged skin, in fact, than whole. If she were mortal, she'd already be dead. As it was, she didn't look like she'd live much longer.

He gritted his teeth and lifted his hands to her wounds. She was in pain, frozen to the bone, and insensible now. Whatever she was, she was in no condition to protest...or observe who he was and what he could do.

Iveren's brow cracked open and blood fell across his face as his Charm sank into her. Necrotic energy swam through her bloodstream, rising to extinguish her life. It wasn't supernatural death, only the kind that all men and women faced when wounded too far. With his Charms, he clenched his hand and demanded the death beneath her skin stop. She screamed as mangled ribs snapped back together, as torn flesh pulled painfully to knit back together. But she would live.

The stabbing ache in Iveren's breast told him that, somewhere, another corpse had just animated to menace the living. The unholy power in him could not abide a conscience like his. For every good work he did, another just as evil or worse happened. Such was the true power of the Void and it was irresistible. Unless the man it worked through fell to meet it instead. Perhaps if it just took him, the only corpse that would come back again might be his own. No more deaths because of him. No more suffering, just peace.

Iveren pulled off his underclothes and flinched when he slid under the hides. His Charm halted her death but she was badly frozen. The only way she would live to morning would be by his body heat. Reluctantly, he unbound her robes beneath the hides, clumsy at it for lack of sight. At last, they opened and her bare skin seared his skin with cold.

Hours pass and sleep claimed him. It was an unsteady rest, one that frightened him and left him feeling emptier than when he'd passed out. Iveren opened his eyes, looking past the nightmares of the Neverborn, and found the woman staring at him. Her eyes were the most marvelous shade of purple, like the color of the sun setting across the Inland Sea or the bold majesty of Saturn when She shone in the sky.

"Who are you?" she whispered. Her breath caught in her throat, rasping past in a voice tortured by harsh conditions. Iveren reached behind him and pulled out his water bottle, kept unfrozen by sharing the hides with them. He uncapped it for her and let her drink her fill. That might be dangerous to a mortal but she was plainly not that.

"My name is..." He stopped, wincing at the rage of the Neverborn. He had a choice. And he made it. "My name is Iveren." Grimly, he hoped she appreciated the knowledge. Uttering it had just cost another mortal their life, for most certainly another skeleton rose somewhere else.

"I'm Ahn-Ahru."

The exotic name suited her for she was very exotic. Her skin was deeply tanned, almost the vibrant red of the Haltan people. Her hair was a brown faded to black, as if its color was caught halfway between mortality and divine magnificence and hadn't quite chosen one or the other. In the dim light of what little morning sun made it into the shelter, he could see that she was a great beauty.

At once, Iveren became conscious of Ahn-Ahru's body. The bloodstains could not conceal her lush female figure, especially since her wounds were closed from his Charms. It had been so very long since he'd had the company of a living woman this close. His cock hardened in an instant and he rolled away before she could protest its presence.

"Thank you for saving my life." Ahn-Ahru's words were cool and controlled, gracious for his efforts yet clearly drawing the line. Iveren smiled a little to himself. She didn't want him taking her gratitude as an invitation. Given they were still naked, it was not an unreasonable thing to do. "But I don't understand how you did."

"I guess you weren't as wounded as you thought," he said evasively.

"There's something about you...what is it?" She sounded so plaintive, such a drastic change from the earlier control in her voice. Involuntarily, Iveren rolled his head back to the side to look at her. This close, he could feel her breath on his lips. It was a steady, hot touch, intimate as a kiss. "You did the impossible, Iveren. You...saved me."

"Please, I did what anyone would have done." Iveren could not stop staring into Ahn-Ahru's eyes. "I couldn't let you die." He physically shook himself free of those beautiful eyes and rolled away from her, turning onto his side. "I've sins enough, Ahn-Ahru. I won't add to them before..."

"Before you die," she finished for him. He gasped slightly at the feel of her small hand pressing between his shoulder blades. "You're intending to, aren't you? You were going to die and yet you gave it up so I could live."

"I've sins enough," Iveren said firmly. "Now, you need to lie back and rest. Even an Exalt like you needs to recover after injuries like that. Let me get you some food."

He climbed out from beneath the hides and went to his pack, as it was braced against the door at their feet. Outside he could hear the snow settling still, packing them in. At least it was warm enough in here now. The first thing any Tear-Eater learned was that cold could freeze you or warm you, depending on how you used it...or how it used you. Iveren pushed aside a disassembled Realm-issue field shovel, his bundles of herbs, and found his provisions on the bottom. Naturally, he hadn't expected to need them at this point but it hardly seemed worth it to dump it from his pack at the time. Now, he was grateful.

Iveren pulled the stores out and turned about. Ahn-Ahru's head jerked down, barely visible in the dimness of their shelter. Had she been looking at him? Iveren returned to the hides, knelt and unpacked some of his dried jerky and trail bread. Putting it before her, crawled backwards and found his underclothes.

"I'm sorry I don't have better to offer you," Iveren said, dressing as he spoke. As he pulled his pants up, he felt eyes on his back and glanced behind him. Once again, Ahn-Ahru's eyes visibly dropped. She was staring!

"Thank you. You've done the impossible for me. I'm not going to complain about the food." She took several bites, chewing slowly, and then suddenly began eating with increasing pace. Iveren smirked to himself as he checked the shelter's integrity. Exalt or not, healed with Charms or not, she'd lost a lot of blood. Her body needed fuel to replace what it'd lost. "Why do you want to die?"

The question surprised him. He looked at the beautiful woman still naked beneath the hides and frowned at her. It was a very personal inquiry and so far he'd followed her reserve with his own. "I've done things, Ahn-Ahru. Things that a man deserves to die for. Why do you want to live?"

"Do I need a reason?" she asked. She looked as surprised by his question as he felt from hers.

"You said you were supposed to die."

"I was. Now I'm not. I don't understand it." Ahn-Ahru looked introspectively puzzled, an internal scrutiny and confusion painted plain across her tan features. Iveren sighed as he looked at her. An inestimable sadness had carved its tracks across that beautiful face. That old sadness had left its marks, enhanced her beauty, but it made him wonder what pain she could carry that would linger so long.

"What about me?" Iveren asked. They were both surprised by the question.

"You should have died already," she said. Her bare shoulders shrugged, the motion stirring the curtain of brown-black hair like wind across the surface of a stream. "I don't understand that either. I don't understand anything anymore."

"Neither do I," he said, sitting down and settling on the top of the hides. Making extended eye contact seemed intrusive so he let his eyes rest on her middle. Even beneath the thick furs, he could see Ahn-Ahru's body stir with each breath. The hides seemed transformed from functional to evocative, simply because they curved with her hip. He really hadn't been around a living woman for far too long. It was distracting him now from doing what he should be doing. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She finished a mouthful of dry biscuit and pushed the bundle away from her. "Where are we?"

"Far away from anything like civilization, even villages. The only thing I know of out here is the God Jorst. I could try taking you to him."

"No need," Ahn-Ahru said, a sudden hardness stiffening her eyes. The stony expression was undermined by the wetness that welled up around her gaze. "Jorst is beyond helping anyone now. Just as I was. It was his Sanctum I traveled from."

"You...killed the King of the Bough?" Iveren was stunned. Starmetal Powerbow or not, Jorst was no Small God.

"Not I. Another." She took a shaky breath and her face twisted with the effort it took to control herself. "She was too much for either of us. How could I know? How could I have known how horribly strong the White Reaper was? ...why didn't they tell me?"

Ahn-Ahru lowered her head and then rolled away from him. She made no noise but Iveren watched the uncoordinated trembling of her shoulders and he knew what was happening.

Silently, he glided across the surface of the hides. Coming up behind her, he lay down and put his arm around her shoulders. Ahn-Ahru's body stiffened against his...and then she began sobbing. Iveren pulled her close to him, made a shelter with his arms and he held her while she cried out her pain.

"Navia," she said at last. "It must be Iselsi Navia." She wiped her face with her arm and huddled against him. The heady scent of her living skin brushed his senses and Iveren closed his eyes, hoping not looking at her would help his control. The last thing she needed right now was the intrusion of the male response. "Death and Decisions sent me but it's her hand, it's always been her hand that wielded me. And now she wants Sad Ivory broken. It would have worked, too, if you hadn't been there." Her eyes regained their awareness and she met his eyes. The purple hue of hers was flecked with stars. He could almost see the beauty of her life mapped across them. "Are you a Maiden's blessing? What are you, Iveren?"

"A monster," he said, his voice ragged. Feelings long forgotten were stirring now inside him. Iveren swallowed and took a deep breath. "I've never been a blessing, Ahn-Ahru. If I've been one to you...it's a spark of light in an eternity of darkness." They lay together for some time and Iveren fought to ignore her beauty.

"What should I do?"

Her voice broke on the words and she winced as tears came again. Iveren shuddered as her arms embraced him. Just be there for her, he thought, just be what she needs. Don't think about yourself...or how she makes you feel alive again. Ignore the smell of her hair, the silk of her skin, and how much heat her body gave off even through the hides.

"Someone sent you to die," he said at last, when her tears stopped. She nodded without looking. "Do you want revenge?" She nodded again but more slowly. "What do you really want?"

"A life," she whispered against his neck. "A life for myself. An existence where I'm more than a weapon."

"Ahn-Ahru," he said. She pulled her face away from his neck and looked at him. Her eyes looked like wet amethyst and there was such need there that Iveren couldn't help but respond. "You're more than that already. You're a woman worth saving."

She kissed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Her lips were a subtle glory at first, hesitant and light. When he returned her kiss, her lips became more urgent. Iveren knew what the consuming hunger of the Void was like. The sudden strength in her arms and the fervor of her embrace spoke of another hunger, another need that he'd forgotten. Then, she rolled out from beneath the hides and he started to remember.

Iveren embraced her again and rolled his head back as her mouth found his neck. Ahn-Ahru's teeth ran lightly across the base of his throat. Her fingers gripped his sides, his arms, his chest as if she was in danger of falling if she didn't keep ahold of him. She was making his head spin and he wasn't even moving.

Her skin beneath his hands was hot, almost feverish. Iveren knew the potency of his Charms and knew she couldn't be sick but he marveled at how her body burned against his. He felt his way down her back, tracing the ridge of her spine until he reached the base. She swung a leg across his hips and his hands found a hold on hers. Iveren broke the hold of her mouth and took a moment just to look at her.

Ahn-Ahru was not like any woman he'd ever seen before. Her tan was all-encompassing, suggesting a natural skin color, and her nipples were strangely lighter in color, almost a pale pink. The black-brown of her hair fell across her body, parted at the neck, framing the lean, toned body without concealing any part of it. She was soft like a woman, from her pleasingly wide hips to her surprisingly full breasts, yet she was hard too. Tight muscle lay beneath the appearance of vulnerable femininity, from her arms to her legs and stomach. Even the space below her belly button all the way down to her sex had definition. And, except for the strange curtain of dark locks on her head, she was completely hairless...even down there. He'd never seen such a thing before.

Her breath quickened under Iveren's scrutiny. Did she like being looked at? She shifted and he felt the trail of warm slickness she left on his stomach. She definitely liked something! All other thought fled when Ahn-Ahru's backwards motion halted against his cock. The pressure of her ass against it made it throb almost painfully. His body had slumbered so long...he wondered if he could survive being this alive again.

With her hands on his chest, she pushed herself up a little. Iveren rose on his elbows, moving her back, and he closed his mouth over one of her nipples. He could feel her shudder. The bud was as delicate as it looked, yet stiff against his tongue, a perfect parallel for Ahn-Ahru. She was balanced across his waist, not quite sitting on him and definitely not relaxed. His cock was pinned between her legs and he felt her wetness across the base of it as he suckled her.

Ahn-Ahru's hand took his and urgently pressed it against her sex. She groaned as she rubbed herself against his fingers. Iveren ran his tongue across the edges of her nipple in a circle while he tried to think of what to do. Certainly, he'd had sex before but not with a woman like this. Not with one who wanted...what she wanted.

It didn't seem to matter. His fingers pushed across an unfamiliar terrain of slick flesh and she only moaned more. Iveren pushed a finger inside her and her whole body flexed, outside and in. Ahn-Ahru's pussy felt so soft but the grip of her muscles around his buried finger was surprisingly strong. It was another parallel to the woman herself and she fascinated him with her rich contradictions.

Then, she reached behind herself and took hold of his cock. Iveren felt himself harden into steel as she slowly squeezed him. He pulled his finger out of her pussy and groaned when she pushed her ass back against his sex. Ahn-Ahru straightened and then she slid down his length.

Iveren's hands came to rest on her wide hips. The woman with purple eyes and a sad face seemed past all her pain as she rocked back and forth on top of him. So was he. How could he have forgotten this? In a life that had become so crowded with death, nothing put a lie to the Void like being with this woman. He knew the Philosophies, hated them, and he burned his doubts away stroke by aching stroke. Her quiet whimpers as she thrust herself down on him silenced the Whispers in his mind until all that was left was the burning need to spill his seed into her. It was a natural need and it was the best proof that death was not the whole answer.

He ground his teeth and fisted his hands to avoid coming. It was almost agony, for this wasn't a stray orgasm to satisfy an urge. This was affirmation that life had a point. But even if he was a monster, Iveren wasn't selfish. Ahn-Ahru needed to be more than a vessel, just as she needed to be more than a weapon. If he could just concentrate...

...there. The Exalted woman who'd almost died last night never seemed more alive than she did right at that moment. The pitch of her cries rose, her rising and falling hips slowed even as they grew more forceful. He could feel her dampness trickling down his cock every time she rose up. Ahn-Ahru's hands pressed against his stomach and a powerful grimace broke the tragic lines of her face.

Oh, Gods.

Iveren's seed felt like a moving avalanche as he lost control. He pulled forcibly down on her hips and pounded his cock into her a dozen times...and then he erupted. Iveren spurted into her twice before he felt an answering squeeze, a sudden pressure that he pushed through. Ahn-Ahru wasn't moaning now, just uttering short, demanding grunts. She ground herself down against him, as hard as she could, and she kept doing it even after the crest of his orgasm subsided into a dizzy euphoria. He watched in wonderment as she kept trying to cry out, as she looked wracked with an unspeakable pleasure.

At last, she abruptly punched the hide-covered ground to either side of his stomach, leaned forward and groaned loudly. Ahn-Ahru gasped her next breath and she collapsed across him to pant against his chest. Though the snow-covered shelter felt searing now, Iveren reached around her and tightened his arms, keeping her sweat-dampened body pressed against him.

The day passed. They lay entwined, as new lovers do and rarely do again after. She seemed to sleep on his chest and Iveren dozed himself until he woke suddenly to realize he was hard again. Ahn-Ahru's head stirred and she met his eyes as she slipped him back inside of her. The sex that followed was hard and powerful. She slammed herself down on top of him until he flipped her on her back. It was raw and primal and it was still the opposite of death.

Inevitably, as life reminded those of it who had it, that it was necessary to maintain it. It was close to twilight when she at last pulled away from his embrace and made her way to the door. Iveren watched her go, watched her pause and give her Starmetal Powerbow a look just as hard as his had been. Then, pointedly, she looked away from it and pushed out a few blocks of snow to get outside.

They took turns cleaning up in general, taking care of nature and taking care of each other. Neither of them spoke for a time. Iveren used his woodaxe to cut lumber to build a fire and Ahn-Ahru fished out his cooking utensils and started a stew with what ingredients he'd brought with him. His eyebrows rose as he watched her deftly mix and prepare the food. She was obviously experienced at cooking on the trail, maybe better than he was by the way the food turned out. She'd even softened up the biscuits and they ate silently.

And then, Ahn-Ahru began talking about her childhood and the devastation left upon Creation by the Great Contagion and the Faerie Host. She talked about her whole family line wiped out by the plague and how one day Heaven had taken her up to make sure it never happened again. Secret after incomprehensible secret dripped from her lips and Iveren listened raptly. She spoke of her bitter loneliness, the terrible things she'd done in her life and why she bore the name Sad Ivory.

"You're alive, Ahn-Ahru," Iveren said, when the stars came out and she had finished telling her life's story. He'd said nothing until then, for it was clear that she needed more than anything someone to simply listen to her. "What do you want now?"

"You." They were huddled together under his hides and the fire made her eyes seem like the magenta of the long-past dusk. "No more weapon for people who want me dead. I should have died and I live because of you. So I want to live with you."

"I'd like that," Iveren said. It was true, too. He was stunned to realize he didn't want to die anymore. All of his sins, all the weight of evil that dripped from his hands was gone. The plain and honest passion of a woman who needed him had burned it up.

"Someday, I'd like to know why you wanted to die, Iveren."

His name cracked through his body and Iveren doubled over with the pain of it. The frenzied Whispers of the Neverborn crawled out of the corners of his mind and he knew then that he should have realized something like this was coming. Every time he affirmed life, death was the result...and he'd just spent a day doing the most alive activity a man could do. His name was the final trigger.

The snow broke open in a circle around him, more than a dozen yards wide. White turned red and blood stained the ground as half of the circle bled. The pain diminished and Iveren looked across the sign of his Caste Mark drawn across the ground. Drops fell past his eyes and he touched his forehead. His fingers came away wet with blood and he sighed at the sight.

"Ahn-Ahru?" Iveren called, when he realized she wasn't near him anymore. "Ahn-Ahru?" He turned and saw she stood by the shelter, the Starmetal Powerbow drawn back. She had the coldest look he'd ever seen on a woman's face and she was ready to kill him where he stood.

"My name is Sad Ivory." They stared at each other for a long minute. He made no gesture toward a weapon. She had him cold and he would live or die on her sufferance alone. At last, tears cracked her stony visage. "Why?"

"I was the champion of my tribe," Iveren said. "And since my people were a tribe of the Tear-Eaters, excellence brought me to the attention of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. She offered me power to protect my people and their interests. I accepted."

"You...chose to become a demon?" Ahn-Ahru's teeth were bared in a snarl but her anger was betrayed by the steady streams of water from her eyes.

"Yes. And I did terrible things in the Lover's service, Ahn-Ahru. That's why I came here. I wanted to see the great trees before I died. Ever since I was a boy, I'd always heard stories of the great redwoods of Halta. I guess I'll never make it to their borders but I can see the trees well enough now."

"Yes, they are." For some reason, her voice was even more choked. A profound sense of empathy almost made him reach for her. But she still held the Starmetal powerbow. "I see now, at last." Ahn-Ahru laughed bitterly. "No wonder the stars showed my death. Your fate might be written in the Loom but your Charms aren't. You healed me, didn't you?"

"I came to die and lived. You were going to die and lived. I don't know what that is," Iveren said. "But I know what I feel."

"And I know that I have spent centuries killing your kind, wherever you spring up!"

"Then you've killed enough of...monsters like me. Don't be their weapon anymore." Iveren held up his hand to stall her angry protest. "Let me live until dawn. And after I die...I want you to promise me something."

"What?" she asked.

"Live." Her eyes dropped at the word. "I want you to live, Ahn-Ahru." Iveren took a deep breath and let it out, watching the mist billow away from his exhalation. His soul would be leaving in just the same way soon, before Oblivion claimed it. "You've told me of Sad Ivory, the Chosen of Endings who died in battle. Let her stay dead. Why not let Ahn-Ahru live for a while?"

"I can't promise you that," she said and she sobbed openly in front of him. "For a...for a single day, I turned away from my destiny. And my Maiden Saturn reminds me of my duty...in the cruelest way possible. I should be used to it by now. There's no room for love in my life, Iveren." He flinched at the name. "You've just proved to me why it's so necessary I continue."

"I'm so sorry, Ahn-Ahru." Iveren hung his head. "I just wanted to die for my crimes and I wanted you...to be one last good act. I didn't expect you to change my life, you know."

"I didn't expect to fall in love with an Anathema," she said. "I guess we're both sorry."

After that, there was nothing more to say. Through the night, he tended to the fire and made no effort to escape. She never put down her powerbow but she did drop it. Maybe Ahn-Ahru knew he wasn't going to run. Or maybe she knew that, in the end, she was giving him what he wanted anyway.

The stars passed overhead and slowly night sky yielded to a brightening radiance in the East. The two of them watched the inching crawl of lighter blues, reds, yellows, and finally pure white as the Sun stretched and began His rise through the sky. Iveren squinted at the brilliance but refused to look away.

"It's magnificent, isn't it? The Sun, I mean." He didn't look at Ahn-Ahru but he felt her looking at him. "I always hated His gaze before...but I know He can see the sinner apart from the sin now. We were Solar once, Ahn-Ahru. The truth of the Abyssals is that we were stolen from a Jade Prison underwater by the Deathlords. A 100 of us were taken by the Deathlords, 50 were given to the Yozi's and the rest escaped. The rest escaped."

"And they're the reason for the rise of the Solar now," Ahn-Ahru finished. "I knew there was a connection...but I didn't know it was this. I didn't know how it happened."

"Now you know. I'm the real monster, Ahn-Ahru. But once...I think I can almost remember it. Once, I was someone beautiful and glorious, someone so pure and good it makes me want to weep. I know I can never be that person. I know what I deserve."

"You deserve a home, Iveren." For once, Ahn-Ahru's naming of him didn't hurt. "And a wife, a family, the things I know you've dreamed of. So do I. Iveren..." He looked away from the Sun, toward her, and saw her with an arrow ready. She was crying again. His tribe would have considered it weak but he saw the strength in that face, in the hand that held the bow. She was going to kill him, even if it broke her heart. "...I love you."

He nodded once and turned back to face the Sun. Iveren impulsively threw his coat aside and pulled off his shirt. He lifted his arms and closed his eyes, basking in the searing light of his real Father. Iveren smiled once, remembering the frozen woman he'd found and the one perfect day of his unholy life.

And then the Void took him.


End file.
